Los Angeles County, California Bridges: I-110 and I-5 Bridges across the Los Angeles River

August 1999 (34.0805 Degrees, -118.2270 Degrees) Los Angeles River Bridges

After crossing under the State Route 2 Bridge (53 0255), a seven span steel girder bridge, there were no other bridges across the L.A. River for several miles. However, as I approached the Metrolink switching yard (on the east side of the river) and Elysian Park (on the west side of the river) six bridges suddenly crossed the river at about the same location. In the photo above I'm looking downstream at the Metrolink Bridge in front of the two I-110 (Harbor Freeway) Bridges over the river.

In the photo above, I'm looking back upstream at the Harbor Freeway Bridges, the Metrolink Bridge, and the I-5 (Golden State) Freeway Bridge in the background. The Harbor Freeway Bridges (53 0042L/R) are 3 span steel girder bridges on tall piers that were built in 1936. The eastbound freeway lanes go through a tunnel before crossing the river (see photo below).

The photo below provides a closer view of the two span continuous through girder bridge that carries Metrolink trains over the river. It replaced a three span through truss bridge that is often seen in older photos (see photo below). Looking closely we can see a bit of the one span Southern Pacific Railroad Truss Bridge (53C0160) that was built in 1939 (behind the Metrolink Bridge) and the long Riverside Drive Sidehill Viaduct (53C1932) on the west (left) side of the river.

Los Angeles County, California Bridges: I-110 and I-5 Bridges across the Los Angeles River by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.